


A Cactus Will Not Give You Superpowers

by Tonight_At_Noon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), in which darcy is the sad one and bucky makes her feel better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 18:40:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19279123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonight_At_Noon/pseuds/Tonight_At_Noon
Summary: Darcy doesn't like the doctor, and it nearly kills Bucky to know why.





	A Cactus Will Not Give You Superpowers

 

**.**

 

_we don't need our bags_ _and we can just leave town_

_you can sit beside me_ _when the world comes down_

Mona Lisa (When the World Comes Down) | The All-American Rejects

 

**.**

 

"Okay, Bucky." She comes in through the back door, something she does so much it doesn't even catch him off guard anymore. He remains seated at the table just to prove to her that she didn't startle him like she used to. Pulling the chair beside him out from under the table, scraping its legs across the wooden floor, she plops next to him and holds out her arm. "He says it's got to come off," she says.

Pushing away his plate of eggs, Bucky suppresses a smile. He has to do that a lot around her. Which is funny, because after Steve decided he didn't want to be with them in the 21st century anymore, he didn't think he could smile. He thought it wasn't possible. Like his mouth had forgotten how.

Clearly, he had been wrong.

He takes her arm gently, careful not to disturb the wound festering beneath the bandage wrapped around almost the entirety of her forearm, and observes it closely. The redness has spread since last night. It spiders out with her veins, pushing against her pale, creamy skin.

"Why didn't you let him do it?" he asks, raising a single eyebrow at her.

She shrugs, an attempt at casualness. But he knows the ugly truth. She is anything but calm.

"I just wanted you to do it," she says.

Liar.

Well, not completely. She _would_ rather him do it. After all, unlike the doctor waiting in the garden for her to return to him, he will hold and kiss her when things get too painful. Things any good partner would do that would get a medical professional in big trouble. And unlike a doctor, he will never betray her trust. Never intentionally harm her.

But she is withholding something.

"He's not going to hurt you," he insists earnestly. "He isn't like that."

Darcy scoffs. That is what she does when she's avoiding something. When she's suppressing something. "That's literally what he's going to do. He's going to take the bandage off, see how fucking infected it is, then poke and prod me with fucking needles. Needles, Bucky. You know, the jabby things that hurt when they go into you?"

He hopes he never gets over how much she swears. It's far more than his war buddies ever did, and he loves her for it. A secret that he will never reveal to her.

"But then," he says, turning the arm over so the bandage seam faces up, "it will feel so much better."

"Fuck better."

"You've been miserable since it happened. I don't know about you, but I'd rather you not die from an easily treatable infection."

"Who says I'll die? Maybe the cactus was secretly radioactive and by treating it I'll stop myself from gaining the superpowers it wanted me to have."

Bucky holds his breath momentarily as another, much larger smile threatens to split his cheeks. He shouldn't really be letting her make him smile. This is a serious issue. One she's been struggling with for a long time. But she's master at diverting the conversation, and he's too much of a fool for her to stop her from doing it.

"Treating it will stop you from getting blood poisoning. That cactus wanted only to incapacitate you. Actually, that cactus was probably," he says, laying her arm onthe table, "minding its own business before you came at it with your spot-on windmill impression."

Slapping him with the hand attached to her good arm, Darcy whines. "Hey, that was a spot-on impression of Agent Smith from _The Matrix_. Dodging bullets and taking names. You know how I get when you don't understand the pop culture references I make."

He does. She feels compelled to explain them in full. It's how they got caught in a snowstorm last winter as she recited almost the entirety of _The Princess Bride_ before her mouth couldn't move anymore. 

And he does like that about her. She works overtime to continue his attempt at assimilation. But then she goes and pummels a cactus.

"Will you let me take the bandage off?" he asks. "I promise it will only hurt for a little bit. I also promise," he adds as Darcy shrinks away from him, "to come outside with you to the doctor. Okay?"

She contemplates his offer. He watches her roll it over like wine in her mouth.

After a few seconds, she nods. "Okay," she says through gritted teeth.

Despite how painful the motion must be, she clenches her fist and holds her arm to him. He watches her take in a deep breath and hold it, and he knows he must act now before she changes her mind. Taking ahold of the bandage's frayed edge with his mechanical hand, Bucky holds her arm in place and pulls. She flinches. The wrap uncoils, sticking to certain places, yanking up yellow scabs and sending blood down her arm in ribbons. When it's completely off, Darcy looks only at him. Her face is pale, as are her usually red lips.

Applauding her for sitting through the procedure, Bucky helps her to her feet. He takes her into the garden. The doctor stands as they approach and pats the chair in which Darcy had presumably been sitting before she ran inside.

Bucky holds her hand through the needles and the antiseptic wipes and the re-applying of the bandage. Ten minutes and it's all over, and Darcy leans back against her chair and gives Bucky's hand a squeeze and lets go. Her eyes close, and her head lolls to the side. Stupidly, Bucky's world freezes as he checks to make sure she's breathing. She is. Slowly. And on her lips, red again, is the faintest triumphant smile.

"Thank you, Doc," Bucky says, shaking the doctor's hand. "I know house calls aren't really a thing anymore, so it means a lot that you were willing to come."

The old, grey-haired man waves Bucky off. "It's nothing. I miss making house calls, if I'm being honest. Though, I feel I must ask, what stopped the two of you from coming to my practice?"

Bucky looks at Darcy's peaceful, drowsy expression.

She didn't always look like that. Not when he first met her after everyone came back. She had the eyes of a lost, beaten dog then. Steve said, before he left them all, that she reminded him of Bucky after their initial collision in DC.

Scared. Confused. Searching for anything to take away the nightmares.

 

**. **

 

 ** She **is skinny. Too skinny. And there's a wild look in her eye. Feral. Like she'll lunge at him if he gets too close.  The moment she arrived at the new facility yesterday, seconds after he opened the doors for her, she collapsed into his arms from exhaustion. He knows she was knocked out for a couple of hours, but she still looks as though she hasn't slept in days. Her eyes seem almost hollow. 

"Thank you for watching over her for a minute." The doctor, Selvig, enters the lab from the opposite side. The woman flinches away from Bucky as if she's only just noticed him. 

Bucky takes the long way around the hospital bed and stands beside the doctor as he checks over a stack of papers attached to a clipboard. "What exactly is wrong with her?" Bucky asks.

Putting the clipboard down, Selvig shoves his glasses up his nose and smiles sadly. "From what I can gather after a bit of research," he says, "she's been the subject of some inhumane experiments. Scientists have been trying to figure out what happened when everyone disappeared. You know, where they went. What the physical and mental effects have been. I don't think she knew what she was signing up for. She just wanted the nightmares to stop."

The doctor's last sentence hits Bucky like a sucker punch to the gut. He knows that desire all too well. Despite how far he has come since dragging Steve from the water, despite all of his rehabilitation in Wakanda, he knows he'll never be the same person he was before he fell from that train. But he's still trying. And it's exhausting, and probably pointless, but the hope drives him forward. 

That's why she's here. This girl. Hope that things can return to something resembling normalcy.

Hope is all people like them have in the end.

Selvig's stomach rumbles. He cradles his belly and smiles sheepishly at the mechanical man. "I'm sorry. I've not eaten all day."

"I can stay," Bucky says, no longer looking at the doctor. His eyes land on the clipboard, then on the woman. Darcy. "I don't mind."

"Oh, thank you," Selvig bursts enthusiastically. He claps Bucky over his metal shoulder, extracting his hand and shaking it out. Another sheepish smile meets Bucky's eye. "Sorry. And, talk to her, Mr. Barnes. She needs to hear a friendly voice."

The doctor leaves the lab in a rush. Unsurprisingly, as it is nearing eight o'clock at night, and that is a long time to go without food. 

Bucky cautiously approaches the stool at the side of the woman's bed. She watches him as he sits. As he adjusts himself. As he smiles pathetically at her. What does he say? Since when has he been the go-to for a  _friendly voice_? If Steve were still here, he would laugh. 

"I know," he finds himself saying. She stares at him blankly. He tries to recover. "I know how you feel."

"Yes," she says, and the potency of her voice is enough to stun him into silence. Her eyes scan his face. Life flickers behind the dull blue. "You do."

 

**. **

It was a long road, but eventually she started cracking jokes. Then she started smiling. Helping him whenever he was confused by some 21st century device. Then came the swearing.

Then, after Selvig cleared her to sleep in the living quarters of the facility, came the late night kisses, then the late night knocking on his door that warmed him through the winter.

"She hates doctors," Bucky says. "They ran all these tests on her after the Decimation got reversed, and it messed with her."

Bucky hasn't told her this, but one day he will find those people, and when he does, they won't even be given a chance to apologise. To beg him to spare their lives. 

The doctor understands, even if he doesn't say anything. He cleans away his supplies from the garden table and leaves them to share the cloudless afternoon. They have lived away from the facility for a while. When she had recovered enough, it was the first thing she wanted. A house they could call their own.

Bucky takes the chair next to Darcy. Her arm already looks less red around the bandage's perimeter.

Good. That's one less thing to worry about.

Reaching towards her, Bucky moves her hair behind her ear and rubs his thumb across her cheek. Her smile widens a little bit.

"Do you think I'm one step closer to not being broken anymore?" she says, her eyes remaining closed.

Bucky's tongue swells. "You're not broken, Darcy." She cracks her eyelids. "You're not broken," he vows. "You're brave. You're a survivor."

Eyes barely open, Darcy leans over and kisses him lazily. Her lips stay with him. Together, they idle in the warmth of the day.


End file.
